Existing treatments include frequent intravenous injections of insulin and transplant of pancreas cells from cadavers into diabetes patients. Scientists have also proposed using stem cells to make fresh pancreas cells for transplant.  Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire    The new research presents the possibility of recruiting cells at the junction between the stomach and small intestines to make insulin instead.

"It's a lot simpler than transplanting beta cells," the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas, Cheung says. The new approach could potentially treat both juvenile and late-onset diabetes, Rhodes adds

The gut cells, called K cells, sit at the surfaces of tiny, fingerlike projections in the gut lining. These cells normally release a hormone called glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, or GIP, into the bloodstream after meals. This hormone helps prepare the pancreas to make insulin to respond to the post-meal surge of blood sugar, so the K cells are roughly synchronized with the pancreas. http://louis2j1sheehan2esquire.blogspot.com

Cheung's team created tiny rings of DNA containing the gene for insulin. To coax the cells into releasing insulin at the right time, they also included a snippet of DNA on the rings that normally activates GIP after a meal. But because the snippet was linked to insulin instead of GIP, once the rings were inserted into K cells, the cells that produced GIP also produced insulin when the body needed it.